Beyond the Rails 3: Slayer of Darkness

Chapter 13

Mombasa Monday morning

          “Well, there it is,” Hobbs had said to Monroe after the impromptu meeting had broken up. “Governor-General Sanderson himself is going to vouch for her. What say you now, good sir?”
          “I say we’ll see what the good general has to say about this young tale-weaver.”
          “You’re actually going to disturb the governor of the colony?”
          “It’s the classic technique of the confidence swindler,” he had told her. “‘Some big, high, important official who you don’t know and wouldn’t dare approach will vouch for me.’ Knowing in complete confidence that for any of a number of reasons, you aren’t going to follow up on their wild tale. Well, she’s badly underestimated me if she thinks that’s going to work.”
          And so he had knocked on the door of her cabin, telling her to make herself presentable for a visit to the governor. If she had been taken aback, she hid it well.
          It was decided that Hobbs and Monroe would accompany Miss Jenkins to the governor’s office while Bakari and Smith caught up on some of the minor maintenance that never stopped being a need. The three of them walked first to the harness shop where Hobbs’ new holster was ready. The belt, a wide band of dark brown leather, cinched her waist, accentuating her femininity, though the giant pistol at her left hip, pointed back and down at a 45° angle, and the eighteen 20-gauge rounds in loops on the right side did much to counter the effect, as did the supporting strap running from the belt above the holster to her right shoulder.
          “Lord,” Monroe said, regarding her with admiration, “it changes your whole look.”
          “Yes?” she asked coyly. “And what do I look like, good sir?”
          “You look dangerous,” he replied, “a condition I highly approve of. Every swaggering bully who’s intimidated by your look is one you don’t have to fight.”
          With his pilot properly armed, Monroe summoned a carriage to drive them on to Government House, the imposing stone building standing close enough to smell the waterfront, but not close enough to be soiled by it. Monroe kept surreptitiously watching Jinx for signs of nervousness, but to all appearances, she simply enjoyed the carriage ride, happy as a schoolgirl on a field trip. When they pulled up in front of the block-wide two story edifice, Monroe hopped out on the street side, and came around to the sidewalk to offer his hand to the two women in turn.
          “Are you certain you want to do this?” he asked Jinx as she took his hand and climbed down.
          “Why Captain, you aren’t having second thoughts, are you?” she replied.
          “Last desperate ploy,” he whispered to Hobbs as she fell in beside him to climb the stairs.
          “What’s that, Captain?” Jinx asked from in front of them.
          “Nothing. Just shop talk with my pilot.”
          “Hmm.”
          Inside the lobby was a large reception desk not dissimilar to those found in police stations, and one of the corporals stationed there turned to them promptly as they approached.
          “Good day, ladies. Sir. How can we assist you?”
          “I have a message for the governor-general,” Jinx told him.
          “I can take it up to him,” the young man offered, holding out his hand to receive it.
          “It is a verbal message.”
          “That’s most irregular,” the corporal said.
          “And most necessary. Will you take it to him?”
          “I don’t know. I’d best get my sergeant.”
          “Please do.”
          Excusing himself, the corporal stepped into an office behind the desk, and shortly, a big man in an immaculate senior sergeant's uniform, every magnificent facial hair in place, came out to look them over.
          “What’s all this, then?” he asked without preamble.
          “I simply need to get a message to the governor-general,” Jinx told him.
          “This is highly irregular,” he repeated.
          “It is absolutely necessary.”
          “You’ll need to make an appointment,” he told her, stepping to a calendar book behind the desk. “I see he has several openings later in the week.”
          “See?” Monroe whispered to Hobbs.
          “Sergeant, if I have to wait a week in order to get a simple message delivered, part of that message will concern the facts involved in you preventing him from learning information vital to national security. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
          The sergeant thought about this for a moment, looking to his corporals as if they might give him the solution to this unexpected conundrum, then turned back to her.
          “Very well,” he told her, taking up a pad and pencil. “What is the message?”
          “Defiant banshee albatross two four six,” she said slowly and with precise elocution.
          “Here,” he said, looking up from the pad, “what kind of message is that?”
          “One he needs to hear,” she replied. “Just take it in to him, if you please.”
          “All right, but if he comes down on me over this nonsense, I’ll have a few choice words for you, missy!”
          He turned and climbed the stairs.
          “I suppose we'll find out soon enough,” Monroe said. “I have to hand it to you, Miss Jenkins, coming this far certainly took a great deal of backbone.”
          “Oh? How’s that?”
          “Going through with this whole charade, right up to contacting the governor. I must say, I’m impressed.”
          “Just wait a moment, then.”
          A moment was about as long as it took for the sergeant to reappear at the top of the stairs with a chastened look on his face. He fairly ran down to the desk.
          “My apologies, Miss,” he said to Jinx. “If you’ll just hand over your weapons, you can collect them on your way out. I hope you understand. One can’t be too careful in a posting like this.”
          “Of course," Monroe said, taking out his LeMat revolver. The sergeant took it, Jinx’s carbine, and Hobbs’ hand cannon, and stored them under the counter. “Please follow me.”
          He led them up the broad marble stairway and a short distance down the hall to an ornate door, gave a single knock, and ushered them into a large and sumptuous office where a tall, slender man in his forties, once dashing, now simply dignified, stood behind his desk waiting.
          “Thank you, sergeant,” he said. “That will be all.”
          “Very good, sir.” He stepped out and closed the door behind him.
          “Now, I remember you, Captain, and your charming pilot,” Sanderson said, “so you must be the one who sent the note.”
          “Yes, sir,” Jinx said with a curtsey. “Abigail Jenkins of the Australian office.”
          “Giles Sanderson,” the governor-general replied. “What is it you require, Miss Jenkins?”
          “At the moment, I only wish you to confirm my identity. I need to work with this crew, and they are rightly skeptical of what I have been able to tell them.”
          “I see. And you can prove that you’re who you say you are?”
          “Yes, sir.” She began unbuttoning her male-styled shirt, turning away toward the corner as she did. “Patience, if you would assist me?”
          “Of course.”
          “Just start peeling my shirt off my left shoulder, and stop when you expose a tattoo. General, I won’t prompt you. When you see it, simply tell these people what it means.”
          Patience pulled the collar of the shirt down off the girl's shoulder, loosened the chemise she wore beneath it, and exposed a small but intricate tattoo of a sunburst in the center of her shoulder blade. She couldn't help but notice the angry scar that ran vertically beside it.
          Sanderson leaned back against his desk choosing his words carefully.
          “I never expected a Darklighter agent to be so young,” he said finally. “Is there trouble afoot in my little colony?”
          “It’s a possibility,” Jinx replied, pulling her shirt back into place and turning as she buttoned it. “I’m still doing the preliminary investigation, and this crew was understandably reluctant to accept what little I could tell them without further proof.”
          “I can certainly understand that,” Sanderson said. “Is there anything you can tell me?”
          “Just that my superiors have heard some rumors that Kraken might have taken an interest in your rubies, and also might be dabbling in the slave trade. They need money to operate, just like everyone else.”
          “Indeed. Well, keep me informed to the extent that you’re able, and if you need anything, anything at all, cash, supplies, soldiers, don't hesitate to ask.”
          “Thank you, Governor. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
          “Let us hope, indeed! Captain, you’ve stumbled into something that few civilians, few soldiers for the matter of that, ever encounter. You’ll have to make your own decisions about how much and in what ways to help her, but I assure you that whatever she has told you about the Darklighters is absolutely true, and anything you do on her behalf will be a great service to the Crown.”
          “I understand, sir,” Monroe said. “We’ll renew our discussion with a new understanding.”
          They took their leave, and once in the hallway, Monroe turned to Jinx.
          “Miss Jenkins—”
          “Don’t say it, Captain. You were right to be skeptical. I wouldn’t have believed it either. Let’s fetch our weapons and get to work, shall we?”

Mombasa 1:00 PM

          Jubilee Bellouard sat at what had become her accustomed table at the bakeshop across from Faraji’s establishment. With her on this occasion wasn’t Ben Crenshaw, but her much more volatile underling, Johnny Two-Fives. Both wore dark clothing that blended into the dark brown trim of the building as well as the crates and barrels stored at one end of the outdoor area, and they made a point of sitting in shadow to be as unobtrusive as possible. Bellouard had her back to the property’s dividing wall, and Two-Fives sat facing the street, able to see in either direction.
          “I still don’t get it,” Two-Fives groused. “What are we sittin’ around here for? There’s twenty-five thousand just waitin’ for us to pick it up.”
          “Twenty-five thousand if he’s alive, Johnny. You simply call on Mr. Bender to surrender, he’s certain to make a fight of it. If we have to kill him, twenty-five thousand becomes one thousand, split three ways. Unless, of course, he kills you during the fireworks.”
          “Not likely!”
          “Nonetheless, the hunter must study his game before he just picks up a gun and walks into the woods. It reduces the chances of the game getting you. Look there, coming from your left. The man and two women.”
          She lifted her chin toward Monroe, Hobbs, and Jinx, who were approaching Faraji’s.
          “Who’re they?”
          “Friends of Mr. Bender, and a factor that we very much have to take into account.”
          “An old man and a couple of women? What do they matter?”
          “They are, as I said, friends of Charlie Bender. We don't know what their degree of loyalty is, whether they would risk their lives to defend him, for example.”
          “An old man and a couple of doxies. Three more bodies, near as I can see.”
          “That's why I’m running this operation, Johnny, because you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
          “What’s that supposed to mean?”
          “It means exactly what I said. We don’t know anything about that old man except that he’s old. You understand, Johnny? He lives out here on the edge of the African jungle, and he’s old. You have to assume there are at least a few people who never had the chance to get old after they tangled with him. The blonde woman is Patience Hobbs, his pilot. She’s almost a legend among the locals, both for her flying skills and her ability to hold her own in a fight. The story the working people are still talking about is how she manhandled a masher twice her size in front of a huge crowd, right there in that little restaurant.”
          “Exaggerations.”
          “Maybe. I don’t know the other woman, and nobody else seems to either, but notice that they are all armed, and on top of that, the two women are armed with some sort of custom weapons. I’ve never seen anything like them, anyway.”
          “So what?”
          “Well, Johnny, you don’t fork over hundreds of dollars for a custom-built firearm if all you need it for is to protect yourself once in a while. You only go to that level of expense if you’re a professional shootist.”
          “What are you sayin’, they’re some kind of killers or somethin’?”
          “I’m saying they know what they’re doing. You can’t discount them just because they’re women. A small child can pull a trigger, and an adult woman can aim pretty well if she bothers to learn.”
          The trio walked into Faraji’s where they were warmly greeted by the barman and the handful of patrons who hadn’t yet returned to their work.
          “You see there? On top of the other things we don’t know yet, like why two women carry custom firearms, the locals know them and like them, and we can’t discount the possibility that they will help them if we simply confront them.”
          “What are we gonna do, then?”
          “I’m thinking, Johnny, I’m thinking.”
          “Well, here’s a thought. With these three desperadoes down here, Bender’s probably alone somewhere. We can find him, take him, and spirit him out.”
          “Just like that?”
          “Just like that. There’s a Prussian colony not thirty miles from here, and we already know they don’t get on with these Limeys so good. It’d be just like draggin’ somebody into Mexico.”
          “So, where do we look for him?”
          “I’d start with his ship. That’s where they live. If he didn’t go out to eat with ’em, maybe he stayed home.”
          “Maybe he did, but we didn’t track him across an ocean and two continents to pin our hopes on a snatch and grab, like a couple of kids stealing jawbreakers from the general store. This will be done my way, according to a well thought out plan that takes into consideration every fact we can learn about his friends, his habits, his movements... I will not have my share of the reward money cut to a fraction because you couldn’t keep it in the holster.”
          “So we’re just gonna sit here? For how long?”
          “For as long as it takes. I’m beginning to wonder whether Mombasa is even the right town to take him in. This place is huge. You’re never out of sight of a witness, and the witnesses all seem like they’ll side with him if the authorities get involved. Hmm.” She paused for a moment’s reflection. “Go back to the hotel, Johnny. Have a drink and relax. I’m going to ask some questions about Nairobi. It might be time for us to take a train ride.”